Why would a journalist who was an ardent socialist and an anti-Nazi during the waning years of the Weimar Republic decide to go to work for the Gestapo abroad? Hans Wesemann, a veteran of World War I and a successful journalist, fled his native Germany in 1933 after writing a number of anti-Nazi articles. Once in Britain, he found life difficult and dull, and thus, for a number of reasons, agreed to furnish the German Embassy in London with information about other refugees. Inevitably, Wesemann became ensnared in his own treachery and suffered the consequences.

During the volatile and experimental years of the Weimar Republic, Wesemann applied his urbanity and cynicism to the analysis of politics, high culture, and popular beliefs. He dared not remain in Germany once Hitler came to power. Once working as a Gestapo agent, he was implicated in the kidnapping of a German exile onto German territory and spent considerable time in a Swiss prison. Although he was eventually freed and able to join his fianc DEGREESD'ee in Venezuela, his unsavory past would continue to haunt him in South America and later in the United States,

English-language translations of Hitler's Mein Kampf during the 1930s raise a number of perplexing questions. Why did a translation not appear in Britain and America until October 1933, seven years after it had first been published in Germany and nine months after Hitler had come to power? When it appeared, why was it only an abridgment rather than the full text? Was it true, as some alleged, that the Nazis severely censored this version? Who was the translator, and why was his name absent from the English edition? When the complete text finally appeared in March 1939, why were there not only two American editions but a separate English edition as well? Did Hitler oppose publishing the entire text in foreign editions, or was its appearance delayed because the publishers felt that such a long and tedious autobiography was of limited public interest? These are the kinds of puzzling queries that intrigued the authors of this book.

From November 1860 to April 1862 there was only one British Envoy Extraordinary and Minister Plenipotentiary in Washington, D.C.--Richard Bickerton Pemell Lyons, Second Baron. Lord Lyons was the highest-ranked British diplomat in Washington, appointed to this post in December 1858 and serving until February 1865. The dispatches included in Volume 1 of The American Civil War through British Eyes offer insight into contemporary Anglo-American relations. This period witnessed the election of Abraham Lincoln, the secession crisis, the formation of the Confederacy, and the first military confrontations of the war. It also raised a host of problems for Great Britain's relationships with both the Union and the Confederacy, such as how the war would affect British nationals residing in the United States, what course official British policy should take regarding diplomatic recognition of the Confederacy, and the effect that the likely interruption of exports might have on British manufacturing. One of Lord Lyon's tasks was to keep London informed of the shifting mood in America. He reported on the country's morale and relayed his impressions of the way in which the press and the politicians influenced public opinion and inflamed patriotic fervor. Lyons was especially struck by how slowly each side geared up for combat. His dispatches show the defensive Southern strategy and explains why the North felt it must take the struggle across Confederate lines. He also related how successful the North was in raising funds, speculated about the role slaves would play, and recognized that a major disruption of Southern life might provoke a slave uprising. The issues raised by these dispatches are crucialones for the study of the Civil War, and this volume, the first of a three-volume collection, fills an important void for students and scholars of the war. Lyons's dispatches offer a perspective on America during its first test of national unity. Through them the Civil War unfolds not in retrospect but through the eyes of a contemporary observer.

The first book to study the history of the Nazis in Britain, this work details how in September 1930 the Nazi Party newspaper, "Volkischer Beobachter," sent its first representative to London and soon after, German residents in London established a local Nazi group, which provided party members with a place to congregate and support the new movement. By 1933, more than 100 members belonged to the London group and the book goes on to discuss how the Nazis in pre-war London created a dilemma for the British foreign and home offices, who were divided as to how best to treat residents whose allegiance was to the German Reich as some felt that all Nazi organizations should be banned while others, including MI5, argued that it would be easier to keep track of Nazis if they were in-country. Calling on previously unpublished German documents, this study reveals the fate of German diplomats, journalists, and professionals, many of whom were interned in Britain or deported to Nazi Germany once war broke out in September 1939. An appendix listing the details concerning the nearly 400 German Party members, as well as Nazi journalists, who spent time in Britain prior to the war is also included.